Terminally ill Brittany Maynard postpones assisted suicide

Brittany Maynard, a terminally ill 29-year-old who advocates for assisted suicide (and plans to use it herself), has re-evaluated her prior decision to die on November 1. In a new video released by the organization Compassion and Choices, whose mission is to promote euthanasia, Maynard says she is still enjoying life with her family and does not feel so sick right now that she wants to end her life at this time.

Maynard was diagnosed in January with the most aggressive form of brain cancer, stage IV glioblastoma multiforme. Doctors gave her less than six months to live, and that was nearly 11 months ago.

Maynard says she can feel herself getting sicker every week, and her most recent episode of seizures sent her to the hospital. Glioblastoma victims experience more and more seizures that intensify as they near death. Right now, Brittany struggles with the symptoms of her illness, but says that they are not so unbearable that she feels the need to end her life at this point.

Pro-Life advocates have urged Maynard to reconsider her suicide decision, encouraging her not to surrender to the suffering by ending her own life with prescription drugs. A priest who is suffering with the same cancer told Brittany that her life is like a play, and that we're all waiting to see what her heroic role is on the stage. A mother also suffering from the condition wrote to Brittany urging her to put up a good fight. One author contrasted the modern euthanasia movement with the brave battle fought by beloved actor Michael Landon in the 1990's, noting that the true heroism comes from peace with impending death and suffering but simultaneously battling the disease with the will to live.

The euthanasia movement, with Hollywood support and creative sophistry, has gained a prowess that is now impacting even innocent victims with the legalization of child euthanasia in Belgium and the Netherlands. Here in the US we see doctors and hospitals issuing do-not-resuscitate orders (DNR) orders against the will of patients and guardians. The increasing acceptance of assisted suicide — propelled by organizations like Compassion and Choices — is a slippery slope. The bottom line is that, as long as anti-Life forces propagate the lie that so-called “quality of life” should play a part in measuring human dignity, individuals will continue to view the right to life on a scale that wholly fails to account for innate, inalienable human value.